Answers still few in police shooting of Asheville teen

Answers remain limited in shooting death of ex-Reynolds athlete Marion

Nov. 10, 2013

At top, Asheville police are shown during an investigation of an incident in which an officer shot and killed former Reynolds High football star A.J. Marion. The home on King Arthur Place is where police say the break-in happened on the morning of Sept. 29. / Sabian Warren / swarren@citizen-times.com

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ASHEVILLE - Samuel Tyson remembers the shouting that woke him on the morning of Sept. 29.

There were multiple voices, and they sounded like commands, although he couldn’t make out what was being said most of the time. But Tyson heard one officer’s statement clearly.

“If I see you, I’m going to shoot,” the 21-year-old UNC Asheville student recalls hearing from his second-floor apartment.

Later came the crack of a single gunshot.

In the weeks since, Tyson and others have questioned whether police had to shoot and kill former Reynolds High football player A.J. Marion, a 19-year-old remembered by other players and his coaches as having an affable personality and a bright future.

Asheville police have declined to release details of the shooting, other than to say Marion failed to follow commands from the officer who shot him in the face.

Marion was unarmed, but police said officers responding to a report of a break-in saw him with a gun during a 50-minute foot chase through an otherwise quiet, wooded neighborhood and adjacent apartment complex.

The belief that Marion could be armed surfaced more than once in 91 police radio transmissions made by officers in pursuit that morning and obtained by the Citizen-Times through a public records request.

In one, an officer warns “if he even points that gun or even turns, shoot him.”

The transmissions, along with 12 pages of police dispatch records and search warrant applications, give a glimpse of what happened the day Marion was killed, though they leave questions unanswered.

The State Bureau of Investigation is investigating, which is standard in police shootings. Its findings will be turned over to District Attorney Ron Moore, though they are unlikely to ever be made public. The SBI is under no requirement that any of its investigations get public scrutiny.

The officer who shot Marion was not identified by police, and they have declined to release his name since. He remains on administrative leave, which also is standard in police shootings.

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Started with a break-in

The events leading to the shooting began with a 911 call made near daybreak in the Camelot neighborhood off New Leicester Highway in West Asheville.

Ira Waters made that call at 7:27 a.m., talking in hushed tones to a dispatcher while behind a locked bedroom door in the King Arthur Place home he shares with family members.

The 19-year-old told the dispatcher he was asleep in his bedroom on the second floor of the split-level home when he was awakened by the sound of someone inside, according to a search warrant application. Waters was alone in the house, situated at the end of a cul-de-sac.

He told the dispatcher that someone tried to open the bedroom door, according to a search warrant application, and then ran down a hallway toward the master bedroom.

The commotion aroused two pit bulls inside the home, and they backed the intruder into a bathroom. Waters continued to communicate with dispatch as he hid inside his room, speaking softly over the phone.

The first officer arrived about 7:33 a.m. and four others arrived by 7:39 a.m., according to police records. Waters initially did not want to leave the room, even once officers arrived, because he believed the intruder was still in the house.

“I don’t think I can go out of my room,” he said to the dispatcher.

Officers could not enter because the front door was locked. They also were concerned about the pit bulls.

Asheville officers discovered a screen on a downstairs window had been popped off and the window opened, according to a search warrant. Waters eventually came out and told police the intruder fled out of the upper level, master bath window, the document states.

Police first caught a glimpse of the break-in suspect at 7:57 a.m. and described him as wearing a black “hoodie” and blue jeans and headed toward Guinevere Court. Radio traffic slowed until 8:19 a.m. when officers noticed someone behind the house wearing a gray sweatshirt with blue sleeves. They were not sure at the time if it was a different person or if the suspect took off his black top.

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It was Marion, and the chase was on.

Police reported hearing gunfire come from the end of Lancelot Lane at 8:27 a.m. And that’s when tension soared.

'Forget giving commands'

Officers requested more units, and three more were on the way.

As Marion made his way east toward Evelake Drive, still within the Camelot neighborhood, police tried to set up a perimeter.

Officers saw him running on Evelake at 8:36 a.m. and quickly noticed he had a gun.

Marion continued running through the neighborhood and fled into a wooded area and the backside entrance of The Meadows Apartments, off Evelake.

Officers began to focus on building 18, but Marion broke the perimeter when he hopped a fence near building 14 and headed into the woods, back toward Evelake, at about 8:40 a.m. That’s when officers said he discarded his shirt and was shirtless.

Marion continued to dart between buildings on the back side of Evelake and into the woods near the front entrance of The Meadows. About 10 officers were scattered throughout the area at this point.

“Just to clear anybody’s mind, if he even points that gun or even turns, shoot him,” an officer said over the radio. “Forget giving commands. He’s already discharged it once.”

About 30 seconds later: “Let’s get a perimeter all the way around where we can see each other, and let’s hold him right here in these woods,” an officer said. “Nobody go in the woods. If he’s ambushed, waiting, we’ll send a dog on him.”

About this time, Tyson, the Meadows resident, could hear shouting outside his apartment. He said a handful of officers were trying to locate Marion in the woods and continued to move away from his apartment.

Tyson’s view was partially obscured by trees, but he saw officers about 80 yards away and heard them giving commands. He couldn’t see Marion but heard him shouting, although Tyson couldn’t understand what was being said.

“It was real garbled, but it sounded like the suspect,” Tyson said that day. “It sounded like he was really agitated, and there was yelling from him. There was shouting for about three seconds (from Marion) before the shot went off. It became more quiet after that.”

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A police statement the day of the shooting said an officer fired after Marion refused to comply with multiple commands from officers.

Marion was transported to Mission Hospital and later died. He had no identification, and police had no idea who he was when Taylor applied for the search warrant about 1:30 p.m. that day. Authorities found the gun Marion had nearly six hours after he was shot.

Police have declined to provide specific details of the moments before Marion was shot — including why the officer felt threatened enough by Marion to fire his weapon and what Marion was saying or doing in those last moments.

The officer has been with the Police Department since February 1994. He is a senior police officer and hostage negotiator.

Only seconds to react

Mike Lanning, a former city officer who retired in 2009 and knows the officer’s identity, says he worked the same shift with him.

“He’s not a hothead,” Lanning said. “He’s level-headed. He’s a hostage negotiator, so he’s used to talking people out of situations.”

“I can assure you, if he had another choice, he would’ve taken another option because nobody wants to be put in that situation,” he added.

Lanning is the last city officer to be shot in the line of duty. In 1987, he chased a man who robbed a West Asheville restaurant and eventually confronted him. The man didn’t obey orders to raise his hands and shot Lanning in the leg. He returned fire, killing the man.

He said the suspect in those situations has the advantage because police don’t know what the person will do and have mere seconds to react.

“In my situation when I got shot, I never even seen the gun and I was 10 feet from him,” he said.

Police have not said how close the officer and Marion were when the shot was fired. The SBI will determine that, although that detail and many others — such as when Marion lost or discarded the gun — may never become public.

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Chief William Anderson declined on the day of the incident to say whether the shot officers heard was fired at police.

Asheville police applied for the warrant to search the residence on King Arthur Place to aid in the investigation and determine why the suspect chose the location, Taylor said. He also said in the document that the initial intent of the suspect in the break-in was unknown at the time.

Waters, the 19-year-old who made that first 911 call, declined to comment for this story.

Marion’s mother, Nicola Mouney, said her son went to the home over an ex-girlfriend and knew the people living there.

“They had been dating a while, and they had broken up,” Mouney said in an October interview. “His heart was broken. I don’t have all the details.”

Since he graduated from Reynolds in 2012, Marion had continued to dream of going to college and possibly playing football.

He was staying in shape and working two jobs — at a nearby Burger King and Autobell Car Wash.

He was accepted at Mars Hill University and could have started classes there in August, but he changed his mind and was making plans to attend Limestone College in Gaffney, S.C., in January.

He had been scheduled to take a college placement exam at Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College that was given the day after he died.

At Reynolds, fans held a moment of silence in his memory during the first football game after his death.

Mouney said in the October interview that her son did not own a gun, and even if someone had given him one he was not armed when he was shot.

More questions

That fact is one of many creating questions for Tyson, the Meadows Apartments witness, and others he knows.

Tyson and about 40 other UNCA students met last month to discuss the shooting. They wanted to share what they knew, try to get the incident report and offer support to Marion’s family.

Other city residents discussed the events in an October community meeting designed to allow the public to give input on how to improve the Police Department. Olufemi Lewis attended the meeting, which was not necessarily a platform to discuss the shooting, and said there is a very strong sentiment that Marion didn’t have to be shot.

City police have not publicly addressed the incident or the tension it has created in the community since the day it happened.

“Our thoughts and prayers continue to be with everyone impacted by the events of that day,” Sgt. Dave Romick said.